Unusual Animal Markings

Have you ever felt like what they call a "marked man?" This past week I had three different men tell me that they felt as though they had a target painted on them for one reason or another. With each of these men I joked about the Far Side cartoon below:

Then the other day I stumbled upon a picture of a cat with an interesting set of markings on its back:

As I ruminated on Hal's birthmark and the cool cat with the black cat marking (which looks to be authentic), I decided to see if I could find any other pictures of animals with interesting markings. Here are two where I'm certain the markings are not something the animals were born with.
This has to be a photoshop job:

Do you remember Petey from the Little Rascals?

I'm sure there were different dogs in that role, but the circle was undoubtedly an addition. From various pictures I found, though, it seems they weren't able to keep it straight concerning which eye was supposed to have the circle painted around it!

But I was able to find some other animals whose markings I feel confident are real.

5 Comments on “Unusual Animal Markings”

Salut! It’s been a while since I’ve read your blog, but I noticed you mention it on FB, so I popped over to take a looksie. This post is really neat. 🙂 Of course you remember Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web was a pig with very unique markings.

I love the piebald squirrel, the pig with the heart, and of course all the kitties with hearts. 🙂

Nice post. I suspect that Atlas, the cow, may have taken his identity from Chester the Worldly Pig by Bill Peet, 1980. Maybe he should add a tattoo of a copyright disclaimer with pertinent text. He could get advice on this from the law firm of Diddee, Cheatham, and Cow, an offshoot of the company that advises the CarTalk guys.

I have always loved the Far Side, especially the index in the back of one of the books. All the letters were blank, except T, which read, “The one about the alien in the mirror, The one about the birthmark, etc.” Worth the price of the book.

It’s a toss up between the cat with the cat on its back and the piebald squirrel. I wonder where those squirrels are found.

You would have thought they would have at least gotten the same eye consistently circled on Petey. The different dogs aren’t even close in their markings. Just goes to show how much they used to get away with back then. Even watching the old TV shows, they had so many bloopers and no one ever noticed. Like how the Lone Ranger rode his horse around the same rock chasing someone with his gun drawn each and every week.

With all the hearts, this would have been a good Valentine’s Day blog.

@Megan – There’s a link about the piebald squirrel in my post — you might want to follow it up. They are definitely interesting looking.

@Nancy – Thanks for the suggestions about Atlas the cow and the CarTalk credits. You make me smile.

@Carrie – Did you discover any interesting markings on your guinea pig?

@Vikki – They were not nearly so careful back then about consistency. When my friend Phil and I did the BoJonics commercials, there was one person on hand just to make sure we were in about the same positions when delivering lines that we had been in previous takes. And that was just for those little commercials. I know, though, that the folks at HomeSat do things right.

updates via RSS or Twitter

receive blog updates by e-mail

here's how:

Leave this field empty if you're human:

a little about me…

My name is Rob Loach and I welcome you to my blog. People come here for an "instant vacation." You can learn more about me and about my instant vacations, including why my blog is called "ivman's blague," by visiting the about page, where you can watch my TV interview about my blog. My site is thirteen years old, so check out the tabs at the top of this page, subjects of interest to you in the tag cloud (below), and older blog posts (about 750 of them) not on the home page of the blog. Though I am posting less often than at first, there's still lots of archived humor here for you to enjoy!

a need you may not be aware of

check out Nora’s amazing cookies

a great read

order this new book!

radical rescue work

Watch these DVD's and never be the same!

good, inexpensive cell phone service

We have enjoyed cheaper cell phone usage for almost 4 years now. I'm a Republic Wireless member and I absolutely love it. Join using my link (click on the picture below) and get $20 off your first bill.

links you might enjoy

networks I’m in

I post a lot of funny images to my blog. Most of them are sent to me by my readers. If the images come with copyright information, I leave that intact, of course. Otherwise I post them in good faith that they are copyright free. I invite any copyright owner to contact me if I have unwittingly infringed by posting the images as they have come to me.